Workplace Basic Education Fund - FÃS Skills for Work initiative
The Workplace Basic Education Fund (WBEF) was set up in 2004 by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The Skills for Work initiative is managed by FÁS under their Services to Business section. The fund is guided by a National Steering Group consisting of representatives from relevant stakeholders such as FÁS, Department of Education & Science / IVEA, NALA, ICTU, SFA, ISME and CIF.
Aim of the fund
The central aim of the Fund (Skills for Work) is to provide training to help employees deal with the basic skills demands of the workplace. All programmes are aimed at employees with basic education needs including literacy and numeracy, in particular employees with, or less than, junior cycle qualifications.
Budget
The fund provides a 100% training subsidy to enhance employees' basic skills needs to enable them to cope with frequent and ongoing changes in work practices. The budget is currently €3 million for 2009.
Activity
About 2,000 persons were trained on the programme in 2007 and 1,500 in 2008.
The model that now operates under SFW emerged from a period of experimentation and typically operates as follows:
- National co-ordination provided by FÁS;
- Regional co-ordinators employed by local and regional organisations;
- Regional co-ordinator acts as broker between the employers/employees and the delivery agents (typically, but not exclusively, the local VEC);
- Regional co-ordinator contacts companies and negotiates a training contract (typically an integrated curriculum with Communications at its core together with other relevant content such as Health and Safety);
- Regional co-ordinator agrees programme with the relevant training provider including delivery, cost etc;
- Contract implemented by adult literacy tutor while co-ordinator continues to act as liaison/support to employer, employees and tutors.
NALA and the WBEF
Over the last three years NALA has developed and designed workplace materials and resources for use by students and tutors. These are:
- Safe and Well – interactive CD ROM and workbook for learners to practise basic skills themed around health and safety issues.
- Steps to Safety – a more basic workbook than Safe and Well that improves your reading and writing and helps you become familiar with health and safety terms.
- Clocking In to Clocking Out – a resource pack for tutors delivering workplace basic education programmes.
NALA has also worked with FÁS on an Apprenticeship project which aims to develop a tool which can be used by tutors delivering apprenticeships to identify literacy and numeracy issues early on in the course. The tool will help to identify needs as early as possible so support mechanisms can be put in place allowing more apprentices to be successful in their course. In 2008 FÁS set up an internal project group to develop an action plan for piloting the tool and support mechanisms developed in phase 1 of the project. Phase 2 will hopefully take place in 2009 and involve piloting in a number of trades and training centres.
For further information contact:
Skills for Work Unit
FAS Services to Business
Tel: 01 - 6070956
Website: http://www.fas.ie/en/Allowances+and+Grants/One+Step+Up/default.htm
